Sometime after the final seconds ticked off on the Ducks’ first-round playoff loss to the Dallas Stars last April, and before they reported to training camp in September, the line between anticipation and anxiousness got blurry.

The anticipation of youngsters Bobby Ryan, Brian Salcido, Brendan Mikkelson and later, Brett Festerling, becoming full-time NHL players. The anticipation of a new season with Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer in uniform from Day 1. The anticipation of possibly hoisting the Stanley Cup again, mixed with the anxiousness to forget about last season.

For the youngsters, the anticipation must continue. They are all in Iowa City, playing for the Ducks’ new American Hockey League affiliate, squeezed out largely by salary-cap constraints. For Niedermayer and Selanne, who signed a two-year contract Sept. 27, they are again in position to let their stellar skills do the talking.

As for the Cup, it looks like the Ducks will have to win it with largely the same group of guys who won it two years ago. And for all the bygone anticipation of infusing young talent, that might not be such a bad thing.

“I was fortunate in Washington to have the same group of guys for an eight-year stretch and we made the playoffs every year,” said Ken Klee. “It’s an important thing when you have your core guys together, and they’re all unselfish guys who want to win. That’s what makes you win.”

Klee, Steve Montador and Brendan Morrison are the only regulars starting the season in Anaheim who didn’t finish here last year. Klee and Montador are complimentary players on the Ducks’ defense, while Morrison could be more than complimentary in his role, centering a scoring line between Teemu Selanne and Chris Kunitz.

All are established veterans who like what they see in this group’s makeup.

“They’ve got just a great combination,” Klee said. “Looking at the forwards – the (Ryan) Getzlafs, the (Corey) Perrys, the (Travis) Moens – they’re all young kids, 220-pounders, all big boys and big bodies and they can move. Then they’ve got the skill like Selanne and Niedermayer.

“To have a good team you can’t have all the same player, but you need to have different pieces of the puzzle and everyone to go on the same page.”

Morrison appears healthy after playing three pain-free preseason games, his first since undergoing ACL surgery in the spring. He still remembers the Ducks eliminating Vancouver from the 2007 playoffs like it was “the other day.”

Those Ducks, Morrison said, were toughest on defense.

“Everybody finished their checks,” he said. “They had a combination of skill and size. It’s like, they can beat you with the skill game but if it turned into a mucking game, they could beat you that way too.”

Montador agreed.

“You look at a Samuel Pahlsson, Chris Kunitz and some of the guys that aren’t the bigger, typecast ‘tougher guys,’ but they play very tough,” he said. “That’s what’s expected. Everybody here has to play a minimum standard of defensive aggressiveness.”

And, as all three pointed out, everyone knows his role.

“It’s a total buy-in from everybody. You don’t have guys on their own agenda,” Morrison said. “Everybody is buying into the system here, believing that if we play the right way it’s going to win.”

Among the team’s veterans, there have been a few role changes during the preseason. Since Ryan was sent to Iowa, Moen has moved from Pahlsson’s checking line into a scoring role alongside Getzlaf and Perry. He responded with a goal and an assist in Sunday’s final preseason game, a 4-3 win in Vancouver.

Kent Huskins, meanwhile, has been given opportunities to run the power play after focusing on back-end defense during his first full NHL season. He responded with a goal, three points and a plus-2 rating in five preseason games.

But for the most part, the 2008-09 Ducks will look the same as their recent counterparts. This year there will be no “Stanley Cup hangover” to contend with – that burden falls to the Detroit Red Wings, who many observers think will win the Western Conference again. The Ducks are not even the trendy pick to win the Pacific Division; many expect the Dallas Stars to stay on a roll from last year’s playoff run.

At least inside the Ducks’ clubhouse, Morrison said the team’s Stanley Cup aura still lingers. It’s a healthy anxiousness, if there ever were such a thing.

“I can sense a real hunger,” he said. “When you look around, if guys play to their potential, we feel we have as good a chance as anybody.”